1942

Articles from 1942

Women Working for the War (The American Magazine, 1942)

Here is an account by one reporter of his visit to an American aircraft factory early in the war. His article concerns the novelty of female laborers:

We climbed to a catwalk in the rafters and looked down on one of the most fascinating factories on earth. It was gay as a flower garden. Women in bright blouses and slacks were everywhere, doing everything. Blondes and brunettes and redheads and – well , middle-aged ones. Mostly pretty. And every one eagerly intent upon her job.


An American POW On Radio Tokyo (American Magazine, 1942)

When the bright boys at Radio Tokyo decided to allow one of their half-starved American prisoners to flatter them on air, they couldn’t imagine that he would take the opportunity to broadcast vital information needed by the U.S. Navy, but that’s just what he did.


Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.

‘Healthy Eroticism” in the Third Reich (Coronet Magazine, 1942)

The fruits of the Third Reich Population Policy are shocking indeed. Fifteen and 16-year-old girls are having babies with the blessings of their Hitler Youth leaders. Unwed mothers with illegitimate children have the right to evict married but childless couples from apartment houses…laws are passed entitling unmarried mothers to call themselves ‘Mrs.’ instead of ‘Miss’, and providing state subsides for illegitimate children and crushing taxes for childless adults.

Finding Japanese Spies (The American Magazine, 1942)

Here is an interesting article by an American counter-espionage agent who tells several stories about the various Japanese spies he had encountered during the early months of the war. He wrote of his his frustrations with the civil liberty laws that were in place to protect both citizen and alien alike.


It was Mexican president Manuel Avila Camacho who chased the spies out of his nation – click here to read about it…

‘Why Hitler Thinks He’ll Win” (The American Magazine, 1942)

This is a great article, penned by an American correspondent who had actually sat face-to-face with Hitler on numerous occasions. He tells the reader many of his observations concerning the man’s personality, expressions and what he has observed regarding the German people:

I have presented [in this article] the essential psychological and material factors in Hitler’s conviction that he will still win the war. There were signs even while I was still in Germany that the German people have given up the dream of a ‘total victory’ to follow their total war.


More about Adolf Hitler can be read here…

Flight Officer Lawrence Olivier (Photoplay Magazine, 1942)

When the actor Lawrence Olivier (1907 – 1989) first heard that a state of war existed between Britain and Germany, he was enjoying the breezes off the shore of Southern California in a sailboat skippered by Hollywood’s heir expectant, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and it was to Fairbanks that the attached letter was addressed. When this letter was written, Olivier was posted to the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm where he gained the understanding that aeronautics was an acquired taste, and one that he simply could not cultivate. In his book International Stars at War, author James Wise noted that Flight Officer Olivier would soon be judged incompetent by the Royal Navy and released for other duties more in line with his abilities (like writing this highly self-conscious letter to his Hollywood friend).


Fairbanks, on the other hand, played an important roll in the U.S. Navy and by the war’s end was sporting a chest-full of ribbons.

Reporter on Bataan (Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

War reporter Nat Floyd (news service unknown) briefly explains how he was able to get out of Bataan just in the nick of time and avoid years of starvation at the hands of the Japanese Army.

Private Yori Wada, United States Army (Script Magazine, 1942)

The attached article was written by a twenty-five year-old Japanese-American Army private named Yori Wada (1917 – 1997). Wada had joined the army some months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack and with all the good fellowship and optimism typical of youth, he explained with some enthusiasm, about how much he enjoyed army life and all the friends he had made within his unit. While the article makes no reference to the unfortunate lot of his family back home, Wada wrote that his future in the army as of April, 1942 was unclear; all he wanted was a fair shot to defend his country, and he didn’t think that he’d get it.

‘The Problem People” (Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

These assorted color photographs of the Japanese-American internment camp at Manzanar, California helped to illustrate this 1942 COLLIER’S MAGAZINE article by Jim Marshall as to what Manzanar was and was not, who was there and how it operated:


All we can do here is prove that we are good sports and good Americans, and hope that people will respect us and our problems.

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